This essay aims to reflect on changes that occurred at different turning points in my life. The journey began when my father got diagnosed with diabetes which led to retinopathy. Little did I know that from that day forward I would spend a lot of my childhood accompanying him to different hospital visits. I saw how uncoordinated services and lack of finances hindered my father from exercising his right to access health care. Even though as a country we have right based approaches, there is no guarantee that people will be afforded these rights. The above is due to the fact that the implementation of policies is a slow process in South Africa (Uys & Samuels, 2010).
The home situation made me to work extra hard in everything I did. I was involved in the school representative counsel in all my schooling career as I wanted to help other students achieve their goals and to make sure order was maintained at the school. One of the highlights in high school was that I was a peer educator. We were trained to listen, counsel and refer different cases to the school. This gave me an opportunity to listen to different life stories and challenges that students from my similar socioeconomic backgrounds faced.
The above encouraged me to know that I was not alone and showed me that by mere listening and referring cases I can make a difference in someone’s life. It was through that where I developed love for public speaking focusing on motivating other students to not let their backgrounds put their backs on the ground (define them). The peer education program also focused on sex education and self-worth which was some of the information I shared in different public platforms. The information gained there built my self-confidence and provided me with an opportunity to work with nurses at our community clinics and I learnt to work in a multidisciplinary setting.
Furthermore, I used that experience to write different stage plays and we acted them at school as well as competing with different high schools. The message in those plays focused on issues such as teenage pregnancy, violence, HIV and Aids as well ways to stop violence in our communities. In 2008 we were chosen to represent the Kwazulu Natal schools to go to the national parliament in Cape town to debate on the issues that affects the youth. Being in parliament made me develop love for advocacy especially for the marginalised population such as children and women.
In 2010 I completed my matric and got 4 distinctions. I was adamant that I would end the cycle of poverty and I worked hard at school to be accepted to a university to study Speech Therapy. At the university I was chosen as the mentor for the first years and I was asked to join the golden key society which invites only the top 15% pupils who excel in their academics. Being a mentor allowed me to share the skills I had gained.
In 2014 I completed my degree. The quest for continual improvement led me to enrol for masters in early childhood intervention (2018-2019) (MECI). In the MECI my classmates described me as resilient and I know it can be attributed to how I grew up and the vow I made to myself to never give up because the future of my family depended on me. Learning starts at birth (Moore 2012) and as the Bronfenbrenner’s bio ecological theory (as cited in Van Niekerk & Tönsing, 2015) stipulates that development is product of the dynamic change resulting from the interaction and mutual influence between the developing person (me) and the integrated, multilevel ecology of the contexts in which they live in.
I learnt about the need to empower parents by involving them in the decision-making process to ensure sustainability .One prominent learning curve was the fact that children development does not occur in a vacuum and the family has the proximal influence to the child’s development. After this realisation (June 2018) I joined an NGO as a community caregiver (CC) for a program called flourish (for zero stunting) which focused on parent empowerment.
In 2019 I was accepted the YALI school of leadership. I learnt different skills which included project management, pillars of governance as well as policy formation and implementation process.I am currently a speech language therapist at a special school and my roles include language and literacy development. I also assess and treat learners with learning difficulties as well as being the support for teachers, especially in managing concessions and adaptations of the curriculum for learners with special education needs. In conclusion the journey towards becoming me has been the hardest yet impactful journey of self-discovery.